


What do you know about the moonlight (until you've been broken underneath it)

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Gen, Hes not ok yall, Hurt No Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Survivors Guilt, The mind is a scary place, You can always tell who my favorite charachter is by how much pain i put them trough, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 04:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Nogitsune is gone. Stiles is not okay.Not that he'd ever tell anyone.Not that anyone would ever notice.





	What do you know about the moonlight (until you've been broken underneath it)

**Author's Note:**

> Void!Stiles really was That villain, but I imagine Stiles doesn't get away from that traumatizing experience scot-free, so I wrote about it bc I'm a sucker for making my favs suffer 
> 
> Also, please tell me if you notice any mistakes or there's anything wrong with my writing

The Nogitsune is gone, and Stiles is fine. Absolutely, perfectly fine. Really. There’s nothing to say he isn’t.

So maybe he can’t sleep, can’t bring himself to close his eyes in case he isn’t the one who wakes up again. Maybe he can’t bring himself to relax, can’t stop focusing in on every little sound, twitching awake as fast as the dreams start coming. Can’t bring himself to live through all of his friends dying for the umpteenth time, because the dreams don’t stop, they don’t. Maybe they leave him sweaty and cold and panting and screaming and crying because he _just can’t do it_. He has never feared something as much as he now fears falling asleep, because it isn’t nice and relieving and peaceful anymore, it’s just pain. Maybe he has only slept eight hours in the last week.

But it’s okay. Siles never slept much anyways, so no one notices.

Sometimes he refers to himself as we, and everytime he does, he feels like he’s losing himself a little more. The constant question of ‘am I really me’ plays on repeat in his brain, and everytime he says we, he feels as if he has his answer. Sometimes he stares in the mirror, but he can’t tell if it’s him, because what’s staring back might be wearing his body, but he knows that doesn’t mean it’s him. Sometimes he does things he wouldn’t usually do, says things he wouldn’t usually say, and panics. Sometimes he doesn’t know if he’s in control of his own body anymore. Sometimes it feels like he isn’t alone, like there’s always someone else in his mind. Thinking of himself in plural is normal now.

But it’s okay. He plays it off as a joke every time, and he has always joked, so no one notices.

He keeps feeling like he’s going to get trapped in his mind. He has to ground himself regularly, so he doesn’t have to think about things, doesn’t have to see it again. He keeps wanting to scream, to hit something, to _do_ something, because he needs to know if this is real. He keeps checking that he’s there every day, every minute, every second, because he can’t let go again. He’s so scared of his own thoughts, so scared of what he’ll find in his head. He keeps fiddling with things, keeps his hands preoccupied even worse than before, because then he can focus on that, and his thoughts won’t drift, and he doesn’t feel like he’s going to lose his mind. He’s never been able to focus. His thoughts drift anyways.

But it’s okay. He plays it off as his adhd, which he has always had, so no one notices.

The panic attacks are back. He doesn’t notice at first, when he’s about to pick up the knife and make dinner, but then his heart is back to beating too fast, hid mind is back to going on overdrift on what if, what if, _what if_. He’s back to falling on the floor crying. When the he walks into the cafeteria and it smells like burnt meat, he has soon stumbled into the bathroom, and he’s back to not being able to breathe, back to shaking and retching and back to feeling like he’s being choke. When someone on the radio tells a riddle he doesn’t know the answer to, he’s back to stopping the car, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles whiten, back to the dizziness and the chest pain and the nausea, back to being so incredibly overwhelmed with fear he can’t feel anything else.

But it’s okay. His friends don’t ask about anything (they never do), and he doesn’t tell them, so no one notices.

Somehow, his anxiety has gotten worse. He jumps at the slightest sound, the slightest touch. The slightest thing is different and his head is already going on overdrive. Somehow, the feeling that at any time now something bad is going to happen has become even more extreme. He finds himself waiting for the pin to drop every second of the day, his mind working at double speed trying to prepare for something it doesn’t even know about. Somehow, he has gotten even more restless, even more fidgety, even more worried. He’s hyper aware of everything going on at all times, and it doesn’t calm his nerves, it just makes it even worse. Somehow, just about anything will immediately activate his fight or flight response, have him go through every way things could possibly go wrong in his head. Every second is spent in vigilance, in dread, in fear, and it’s crushing him.

But it’s okay. He chalks it up to his adhd, again, and no one questions him, so no one notices.

He can’t look anyone in the eyes. It’s the guilt, because of course the fucking guilt is back again. He can’t be around his friends without the constant guilt of how much he must have hurt them coiling in his gut, can’t be around anyone without being reminded about how many deaths were his faults, how many might as well have been by his hand. He can’t stand the fact that he’s still alive, that he’s still fine, even when there are so many others who should be here instead of him, who deserve it more than him. He can’t handle the survivor’s guilt, can’t handle the fact that this is exactly like when his mom died, except ten times worse. Smiling has never been so hard.

But it’s okay. For human lie detectors, his friends are really bad at picking up on when his laugh is fake, so no one notices.

Maybe he hides all of it, maybe his jokes fall flat and his smile is forced, maybe his body is going trough everything like its on autopilot, maybe he’s just doing it to keep up appearances at this point. It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s just so unbelievebly tired of everything, of the stress and the fighting and the pain. Maybe he feels both so full and devoid of emotion at the same time, maybe he feels like he’s going to be ripped apart, like sometimes soon he’s just going to burst. like he can’t do this anymore. Maybe even now, after the nogitsune is gone, he still feels void.

But it’s okay. Because he can’t afford it not to be. He can’t let them think he’s weak, _weaker_, can’t let them think there’s anything wrong with him. He’s human, he’s already lacking, already inadequate, he can’t let them see him as even more powerless. They already consider him fragile, he can’t let them think of him as glass, shattered by a single touch. He’s already the weakest link, he can’t let them see just how powerless he actually is.

So it’s okay, because it has to be. No matter what they say, he will not be weak. Never again.


End file.
